Entertainment

NBA Gives Basketball Nerds the Gift of Big Data

The NBA will launch a new tool at midnight EST on Friday that gives hardcore and casual hoops fans alike access to an overwhelming amount of historical stats and data. Found at NBA.com/Stats, it includes box scores for every game dating back to the NBA's first season in 1946, as well as deep historical dives on player performance and effective team combinations.

Users will be able to access an incredible total of 4.5 quadrillion statistical combinations, according to Ken De Gennaro, the NBA's vice president of information technology.

Powered by the enterprise and analytics software company SAP, NBA.com/Stats appears to be an unprecedented step by a sports league into officially opening the gates of big data for fans.

A demo of the tool earlier this week was really impressive, with a pleasant interface complementing a staggering array of statistical combinations and insights.

Just a few clicks, for example, brought up a comparison of Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant's rebounding numbers in wins vs. losses. A couple more narrowed that comparison down to just home wins vs. home losses. A couple more narrowed it down further to home wins against Eastern Conference teams, then home wins against Western Conference teams.

Color-coded court diagrams showed Durant's shooting performance from different spots on the floor — where he shot from most and how successful he was from each region — during his rookie year compared to this season. A couple more clicks called up a chart of this season's best players in a variety of clutch situations.

Essentially, the common fan now has ready access to stats and diagrams previously only available to scouts and media.

"The idea is that you can go as deep as you basically want," De Gennaro tells Mashable. "You can look at stories that are presented to you, or just start asking questions to your heart's content by changing date ranges, points during the game, when a team wins vs. loses, player vs. player situations, anything you want."

An editorial component rounds out all the number crunching. It highlights certain stats and box scores from famous games, as well as contains a glossary section that explains some of the more advanced stats.

Each page also includes buttons to quickly share whatever you're looking at via Facebook, Google+ or Twitter — so all that trash talking on social media may finally have some substance.

As for what all this means for SAP's potential in sports beyond basketball?

"Our partnership with the NBA enables fans to enjoy a deeper level of insight and feeling of connection to their favorite players and teams," SAP's senior vice president of sports and entertainment, Steve Peck, tells Mashable via email. "In this way, SAP helps the NBA to reach fans like never before. This is just a precursor of what SAP is capable of in the world of sports."

Would you like to see more data opened up to fans like this, or is it information overload? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Mashable
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